Director: Magnus von Horn
Set in Copenhagen just after the First World War, "The Girl with the Needle" follows a young seamstress whose life unravels when poverty, an unwanted pregnancy, and a stranger's unsettling kindness collide.
What is Pigen med nålen about?
Karoline works long shifts in a garment factory and lives in a cramped rented room while her husband is missing, presumed dead at the front. When she loses her job and discovers she is pregnant by her employer's son, she is left with nowhere to turn. A chance meeting with Dagmar, a woman who quietly arranges adoptions for desperate mothers, offers what looks like a lifeline. Dagmar runs a small candy shop as a front and speaks with the calm authority of someone who has helped many women before. Karoline begins working alongside her, caring for infants awaiting new families, and the two form an unlikely, almost maternal bond. But the arrangement is built on secrets, and as Karoline gets closer to the details of how the adoptions actually happen, she is forced to confront a truth about her new friend and mentor that changes everything she believed about safety, motherhood, and trust in a city still scarred by war.
Cast & crew
Vic Carmen Sonne carries the film as Karoline with a performance built on silence and small gestures rather than speeches, while Trine Dyrholm plays Dagmar with a warmth that makes the character's later turns land harder. Director Magnus von Horn shoots the pair in stark black and white, giving both actors room to communicate through expression alone.
Context & significance
The film is loosely inspired by real events in early 20th-century Denmark and uses period detail, from factory floors to public bathhouses, to build a portrait of a society still reordering itself after 1918. Von Horn's earlier work often examined outsiders and moral gray zones, and this film continues that interest through a story about survival when institutions fail the most vulnerable.
Where & how to watch
"The Girl with the Needle" is available to watch on K-Time with a free account login, with a Farsi-language menu and both Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles for viewers who prefer either option.